Looking to play an Archer kit throughout the Baldur's Gate games, wondering about arrows in BG2:EE

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I have never let Anomen kill what's his name, so I can't verify this personally, but here is one player's account.

"Anyway, I screwed up Anomen's quest and he killed the guy instead of reporting him to the city. As a result, when his test for entrance into the Order happened, he failed and became Chaotic Neutral. Now, all of this happened before I took off to find Imoen (I finished all quests on the mainland before heading out, save for the shadow dragon). As soon as we landed in Brynnlaw, Anomen went insane, forcing a fight with Keldorn. "

I did a Google search, and found a number of references. Here is another account of Anomen's quest, this time from a game guide.

Go to the Order of the Most Radiant Heart at 10 in the Temple District and enter.

Once you enter the Order's headquarters, Anomen takes over and goes to take his test, bringing only you with him.

Prelate Wessalen then performs the ceremony. What happens next depends on how you resolved the first of Anomen's quests, and on the party's reputation.

If Anomen decided to seek revenge for his sister's murder, Prelate Wessalen rejects Anomen and casts him from the Order. Having failed in his life's ambition, Anomen effectively goes insane and his alignment shifts to Chaotic Neutral. The party gains 5,000 XP.

Anomen will also be rejected by the order if the party's reputation at this point is below 10.

Anomen becomes Sir Anomen: If Anomen chose the way of the law in the first quest, he is accepted into the Order of the Most Radiant Heart. The party gains 10,000 XP. Anomen himself gains 50,000 XP, his Wisdom is raised to 16, his alignment shifts to Lawful Good, and his name changes to Sir Anomen.

Only if Anomen fails the test: When you leave the Order's building, Anomen expresses a wish to kill everybody inside. If you ridicule him at this point ("What a splendid idea, Anomen!"), he leaves the party and attacks you. If you want to keep him in the party, calm him down and he will follow you peacefully.

Sorry for the digression; this has little to do with choosing an Archer kit as CharName, but the topic sort of came up.

Let's get back to discussion of Archers. Mine is doing well in early SoA having picked up the Tuigan bow. The main problem is that being basically a gatling gun that fires arrows, he uses them up fairly fast. Make sure that you bring bunches of them along, if wandering in areas where there are no shops to buy supplies.

Sorry for the digression; this has little to do with choosing an Archer kit as CharName, but the topic sort of came up.

Let's get back to discussion of Archers. Mine is doing well in early SoA having picked up the Tuigan bow. The main problem is that being basically a gatling gun that fires arrows, he uses them up fairly fast. Make sure that you bring bunches of them along, if wandering in areas where there are no shops to buy supplies.

Thanks for bringing the conversation back on topic!

You could always try the first level of Watcher's Keep (which isn't too bad) and grab the unlimited quiver from there. And if you have the BG2/ToB Tweakpack from GibberlingsThree installed, there's an option to allow Cromwell to make things out of stuff from Watcher's Keep - which would let you upgrade the quiver to +2.

Oh, that's a good point about the basic quiver of plenty. I had totally forgotten it was there. Right now I'm not hurting for arrows. I'm almost done with the Windspear scenario (Mr. F himself will have to wait for us to get a few more levels under our belts), and there is a spot which spawns bunches of orc archers every time you go past the entryway of the first level. They have dropped something like 200 +1 arrows so far, along with a potload of normal ones. Once I leave there, however, the supply is likely to diminish.

As I mentioned in the digression re Anomen's quest, I usually have a set pattern where I do 4 quests in more or less the same order at the start of SoA. Ch2 is so rife with quests after that, it's hard to approach them in any logical order. Rescue Haer D'Aelis from the sewers? Head for the Umar hills? Solve the Bridge District murders? Pick up Keldorn and get involved in that extensive Beholder Cult campaign, or go after the slavers first? When to recruit Neera and go after the Cowled Wizards?

WK is an extensive scenario in and of itself, which I don't usually approach until much later. Given the point about the quiver of plenty, however, it might be worth while when playing an Archer kit to make a few earlier forays into the first level in order to grab that specific item.

I apologize for taking things off subject. I too am enjoying my archer run through BG2EE. Recently picked up Tansheron's (short) bow in Trademeet, which gives +3 to hit arrows when arrows not equipped. Seems to be the ticket at this point.

I don't recall ever getting Tansheron's bow before, but then nobody in any of my parties was ever particularly into using bows before, either. I gave Firetooth to Keldorn, since he was the only one who had pips in crossbows (Dorn got it when I was running the Bad Boyz). Imoen could use shortbows but I just gave her a plain old +3 bow since arcane spells were her main forte in combat. I didn't realize Tansheron's made it's own ammo; good to know.

But right now Tuigan bow is where it's at. I won't be able to buy squat at Trademeet until I solve their dumb genie problem, and to do that requires offing those Raksashas which I'll probably wait a while to attempt. My party is only level 9 at most right now.

I figure to thin out the Athkatla quests first and do the slavers (Lilarcor!) and thieve's guild (Edwin!) scenarios, then head for the druid grove quest.

RE: WK and the Quiver of Plenty. There appears to be a level requirement to enter the Keep. At level 9 the Helmites refused me entry and told me to come back when I was more experienced. Anyone know what the threshold level is?

Yeah, I got in, grabbed both the endless bolts +1 (for Keldorn since he has pips in crossbows ... I gave him the army scythe) and the quiver (for me) and ran out again really fast. I opted for buying him the army scythe instead of Firetooth for now, since the Scythe, like the tuigan bow, gives an extra APR, and right now we won't be facing anything that can't be hit with +1 ammunition. Also it's a lot cheaper than Firetooth.

Without dexterity enhancing and strength enhancing items, and not having Carsomyr yet, Keldorn is actually pretty awful as a front line melee character ... he's better off sniping away from a distance. Also, here's a hint: get rid of his crappy armor ASAP and toss him some full plate, or better yet, full plate +1. Freedom of movement carries a price; he can't be slowed or entangled while he's wearing the Firecam plate, but he can't be hasted either.

Yeah, I got in, grabbed both the endless bolts +1 (for Keldorn since he has pips in crossbows ... I gave him the army scythe) and the quiver (for me) and ran out again really fast. I opted for buying him the army scythe instead of Firetooth for now, since the Scythe, like the tuigan bow, gives an extra APR, and right now we won't be facing anything that can't be hit with +1 ammunition. Also it's a lot cheaper than Firetooth.

Without dexterity enhancing and strength enhancing items, and not having Carsomyr yet, Keldorn is actually pretty awful as a front line melee character ... he's better off sniping away from a distance. Also, here's a hint: get rid of his crappy armor ASAP and toss him some full plate, or better yet, full plate +1. Freedom of movement carries a price; he can't be slowed or entangled while he's wearing the Firecam plate, but he can't be hasted either.

Full Plate and a Ring of Protection+(x) always beats Full Plate+(x)... all about dem saves.

Agree on Keldorn's dexterity problem though... further exacerbated by his two handed weapon style (meaning no shield/helpful off-hand). If you have Anomen along too (not an unlikely pairing for a "pure of heart" run), it can be a bind deciding which of the gets the Brawling Hands and which has to make do with potions. Although, at least Anomen can use Draw Upon Holy Might...

And yes, I tend to prefer full plate over full+1 exactly for the reason you mentioned; you can add rings or whatever of +1 or +2. But full +1 is better than just plate. I distribute armor according to what party I have and who needs what the most. For that matter, you can get some ankheg plate (there's an ankheg in the hills near Firkraag's lair) which is decent protection and weighs a lot less than full plate.

DUHM is great and I have Anomen bring 2 or 3 of them along. Also note that Keldorn does have pips in longsword right from the start. Before he gets Carsomyr, I give him Peridan and the Dragon Scale shield. That way if we're rushed by a bunch of critters and he absolutely HAS to engage in melee, he at least has a better AC than when using that piece of junk two-hander he comes equipped with.

If I'm running an archer, I hopefully won't need to melee, so he can have those items instead of MyChar (although I also do carry a sword and shield just for emergency use).

Which leads me to a tactical question for archers. I grabbed 5 pips in short bow asap, and have the Tuigan bow and the unlimited quiver+1. That gives me a good APR and DPR. I can only get 1 pip in melee weapons. Although I'm in the back, we may occasionally get rushed.

If forced to engage in melee, should I switch to weapon and shield for better protection (engaging in melee with a missile weapon in use gives them a better chance to hit you if I recall, but I'm not sure how much), or stick with the bow for maximum firepower, trying to kill them ASAP?

So far, I am tending to take option "B", since my leather armor gives me a poor AC in any event, and dead enemies can't attack you. This might be changed however, under certain circumstances. Like, being attacked by a swarm of life-draining Undead. Opinions?

Well, personally I don't consider being swarmed that lethal, unless playing no-reload. It happens rarely if you position your party correctly, but can easily be mitigated by using haste/boots of speed and just dodge any incoming enemies targeting your archer. So it will be quite rare that you have to switch to melee. If that happens though I would have a twohander in a quickslot, like staffs, and switch to that. You can ofc have a shield in the inventory as a safety net, but I guess it will very rarely be used (unless you always charge your archer straight into enemies, but that would be rather stupid, hehe).

So to summarize my late night ramblings, for most cases I would just re-position and then continue firing and let my party members attack as well to draw enemy attention. If that fails and the enemy is weak I wouldn't bother swapping weapons, but if I did, I would use a qstaff or another 2-hander (plus it gets you some range vs singlehanded weapon weilding enemies).

At level 13 you will have 2 APR base even with just 1 prof point in a melee weapon. Together with two weapon fighting and a speed weapon you will reach good dmg and 4 APR base. Pair it with the shadow dragon armor (counts as studded) and some +AC gear and you can tank decently for many rounds withour risk of dying too easy. You will never outperform a well-eqiupped fighter obviously, but you will deal some serious damage.

Well, I'm still in early SoA; only halfway through level 9. Nobody has Boots of Speed yet, and some critters are hard to avoid. Those mist things on the first level of the entry to Firkraag's lair, for example. There isn't a truly endless supply of them but there are certainly quite a few. They seemed to be able to flow around my front line, and are hard to distract. It looks like they will chase down any target they fixate on. Like my archer, for example. Very pestiferous little beggars they were.

Trying to fight them off while being peppered by those orc archers was a serious annoyance.

I'm a little better equipped now than then. I have +3 Aeger's Hide, the Helm of Balduran, cloak of the sewers and ring of earth control. AC with this stuff is -4; I have a +2 medium shield which gets it up to -7. Next goal will be better armor; Shadows of Night perhaps.

Hey! I'm the leader and the Bhaalspawn of the group! I intend to grab all the best stuff.

If you don't mind backtracking some. I'd hit up the planar prison before windspire for your Archer. You get the speed offhand for when you need to melee, and I think it also gives you your fastest option for boots of speed.

Also, you can easily block off corridors so that things can't get back to your Archer.

All that said: I really love Keldorn's starting armor, and I consider free action to be more useful until the mid teens than haste. Ample use of web spells in strategic locations makes hard fights a lot easier. With Keldorn having FA, he can still wade in and melee on things. Also if they're held by web, it'll help make up for his poor melee thac0.

All that said: I really love Keldorn's starting armor, and I consider free action to be more useful until the mid teens than haste. Ample use of web spells in strategic locations makes hard fights a lot easier. With Keldorn having FA, he can still wade in and melee on things. Also if they're held by web, it'll help make up for his poor melee thac0.

This is a really good point, actually. If Charname is an Archer, then Web and similar area-denial spells should be your friends... And a buddy freely dropping d10s on their webbed butts isn't nothing.

Well, as mentioned, Keldorn has the army scythe for extra attacks from a distance. When hasted he gets 3 APR, which is pretty decent. I do use web on occasion as well (I make sure everybody has missile weapons for just such occasions), but perhaps I should take more of them along. But I'd still rather have him fight from a distance until he gets better equipment.

He doesn't need the free action under such circumstances. I do have him carry his armor as well, however. There are a few places where traps set off entangle spells, and he switches back for use in those areas.

Well, I'm still in early SoA; only halfway through level 9. Nobody has Boots of Speed yet, and some critters are hard to avoid. Those mist things on the first level of the entry to Firkraag's lair, for example. There isn't a truly endless supply of them but there are certainly quite a few. They seemed to be able to flow around my front line, and are hard to distract. It looks like they will chase down any target they fixate on. Like my archer, for example. Very pestiferous little beggars they were.

Trying to fight them off while being peppered by those orc archers was a serious annoyance.

I'm a little better equipped now than then. I have +3 Aeger's Hide, the Helm of Balduran, cloak of the sewers and ring of earth control. AC with this stuff is -4; I have a +2 medium shield which gets it up to -7. Next goal will be better armor; Shadows of Night perhaps.

Hey! I'm the leader and the Bhaalspawn of the group! I intend to grab all the best stuff.

Ok, didn't realize you were that early in the game. The haste spell is still available to you though, and on that spell level (are you using Jan?) you can memorize a couple and use a new one when/if the first one runs out. Also the short sword from the encounter in between areas in Athkatla gives the item ability for another haste spell. Have it in your quickslot, no matter if you have prof points in short swords, and use it. That can give you at least 3-4 haste spells per resting easily, even on low levels.

If you don't mind backtracking some. I'd hit up the planar prison before windspire for your Archer. You get the speed offhand for when you need to melee, and I think it also gives you your fastest option for boots of speed.

Also, you can easily block off corridors so that things can't get back to your Archer.

All that said: I really love Keldorn's starting armor, and I consider free action to be more useful until the mid teens than haste. Ample use of web spells in strategic locations makes hard fights a lot easier. With Keldorn having FA, he can still wade in and melee on things. Also if they're held by web, it'll help make up for his poor melee thac0.

I agree with this, both with doing planar prison and webbing enemies.

You can do the early parts of the wild mage quests and get access to the wand selling merchant in the red wizard enclave in Athkatla and steal all of his wands. That will give a massive supply of all the wands you need to take down the planar prison even on low levels (cloud wand from outside enemy view, cheesy as hell, but very effective). That will net you some of the best items, including boots of speed/kundane, as you know already.

You can also steal a merchant's stuff and sell it back to him. Cheesy, cheesy, cheesy.

Why is everybody so down on Windspear? It's usually the fourth quest I do (not counting Irenicus' prison since you have no choice in that one), and while those orc archers are annoying, they drop a ton of +1 arrows. You get two quests for the price of one; rescue Garren's kid and drop off the Dryad acorns. Oh and then there's King Stroh's tomb; make that three quests. That death mask can be worn by anyone, and it functions like a helmet to ward off critical head blows; so your mage/thief/monk/kensai can wear it until they get a good Ioun stone.

I'm still running 4 separate groups through early SoA; trying to decide who to use for the full run. So, I'm doing them all in the same order to get a fair evaluation of the various kits.

I'm getting a little down on the monk. He's basically a warrior kit that is in the end limited to +4 weapons, gets fewer HP and can't use the best armors/shields. The various immunities don't compensate for the drawbacks, IMO.

Swashbuckler is amusing and would be a bit of a challenge, but I've already used a high level NPC thief through to the end so I know how they function. It will probably come down to a choice between Archer and Blade. Offensive spin + Tenser's should be nasty, but so should GWW + grand mastery of bows.

I'm not down on it per say, I just think it is one of the more difficult Chapter 2 dungeons, and most of the loot that you get from it, doesn't help much outside the dungeon itself.

Carsomyr is godly yes, but (and remember, I main paladins), killing Firkraag is a PITA, especially at lower levels. You got a longsword and shield that are best used against dragons. When you add in level draining vamps, etc, leading up to all that. I just prefer to make that dungeon one of the mid to last ones I do.

I usually put off Windspear just because it doesn't have any equipment I'm in a hurry to acquire. De'Arnise has the Flail of Ages, Cult of the Eyeless has the Gauntlets of Dexterity, Planar Sphere has the Gauntlets of Ogre Power, Trademeet opens up several items once you get the shops running again, etc. Windspear just has a bunch of elemental resistance gear in comparison, which is useful, but not something that will dramatically change my party's power level. It also doesn't help that Windspear doesn't put you in the path of recruiting any NPCs and (IIRC) doesn't improve your reputation.

Windspear I do after D'Arnise keep, so I do have the Flail of Ages and the other stuff those golems guard. (Those guys are easy to take out since they only activate one at a time). The gauntlets of Ogre Power can wait; I usually buy the Girdle of Hill Giant strength for anyone who needs extra punching power, and the army scythe for someone like Keldorn.

Elemental resistance stuff is very useful. I combine it to give one party member high resistance. Anomen comes equipped with his shield that already grants him some fire resistance, so I add to it. I currently have Anomen up to 60% fire resistant; I can send him up front with DUHM in effect to draw foes, then dump fireballs on the whole lot. They fry, he gets a bit singed.

I know where all the good stuff is. Belm is near the Raksasha lair, Kundane is in the Prison, Carsomyr is sitting under Firkraag's butt. If you are relying on Nalia to be your thief, you want the rings of lockpicks and danger sense. There are several goodies in the Planar Sphere, but I need to recruit Valygar to get inside, and I'm not there yet on this run. Etc.

As I said, Windspear has three quests all grouped near each other, gives you a ton of +1 arrows, which is good even if you have snuck into WK and grabbed the quiver. Before heading there, I also do just the very first part of the slaver campaign, to free the Copper Kettle and grab the Tuigan bow, which is useful even to non-archer kits.

Just a note from my recent Black Pits 2 run (featuring an Archer): Vhailor's Helm is insanely good on Archers... 2 Improved Hasted high level bowmen raining Called Shots from Gesen's Bow will make a mess of *anything* they see.

I'm currently running two parallel worlds; one with my Archer and one with a Blade. Trying to decide which one to go with for a full run-through. Just did the Planar prison and the Blade got through with some close calls. (My monk, by contrast, proved to be an epic failure and has been retired from the competition.)

I was a bit pessimistic about the Archer's chances, but need not have been. The opposition pretty much melted away. I even jumped into one of those pits with 4 Yankee Git knights. At that point I had the Paws of the cheetah and figured I could run back out if things got hairy, but retreat proved unnecessary. I machine gunned them down. I took damage, of course, but less than I expected.

The Blade is more versatile, with all those arcane spells. The archer, by contrast, is pretty much a one trick pony, but it's a trick that is done well. The other ranger kits can't get grand mastery in a weapon style; the archer is sort of a warrior/ranger mixture in that regard.

About the Quiver of Plenty and Ammo Belt at the first level of Watcher's Keep:

You don't even need to fight your way through it. Usually what I do is take either Yoshimo or Jan there and hide my way in shadows through the level, looting the items I need. I don't actually engage any enemies (or even take the potions of superior healing).

Having the quiver of plenty and the ammo belt will make your life a whole lot easier (you can just ignore regular or +1 arrows, and store any other magical ammo without too much inventory micromanaging). It's the kind of convenience I couldn't wait until ToB for.

Oh, and while you're there, you can also purchase a potion bag for like 200gp.

You don't have to fight, but you can. I noticed that if you go into level 1 of WK with a fairly low level party (under level 10) those level draining wraith things don't show up and the other combats are more or less easy if you don't aggro the statues in the central hall. There seems to be a threshold around party level 11 that triggers those pests and they make life a lot harder for you.

There's no reason not to pick up some extra experience by killing off the wimpier monsters.

So far we have finished off the slavers, freed up Trademeet from the Genies and whacked the evil druids. I was able to buy Tansheron's bow with the rewards, but gave it to Nalia for now along with the bracers of archery; I'm getting too much mileage out of the Tuigan bow with its extra APR. If you have more than one bow user in the party, you still need to collect arrows (she got the ammo belt as well).

@Skatan I really think for an archer that 5 pips in shortbow and crossbow asap is important due to the unique characteristics of Tuigan, Gesen and Firetooth bows not to mention the various ammo types available.

@Skatan I really think for an archer that 5 pips in shortbow and crossbow asap is important due to the unique characteristics of Tuigan, Gesen and Firetooth bows not to mention the various ammo types available.

Indeed, I grabbed the 5 pips in shortbow first, but went for the 2 in slings before starting on crossbows. There's a couple of things that arrows don't seem to work against, while sling + giant strength does good damage.

I'm also making sure that everybody in the party has missile weapons of some sort. We can really weaken an oncoming group of foes before they ever close to melee range, especially using something like entangle or web to slow them down.